The Promise, Part Four

Or I could choose otherwise.

I had all of eternity to make up my mind.

I believe that I would still be there now, frozen in that moment, if I hadn't made my choice.

She didn't ask for a promise, really. She didn't say "Swear.." She just waited, sitting cross-legged, back to a tree, face turned up to the sun.

It didn't take long.

I made the biggest promise I've ever made in my life. I promised that I wouldn't try again. That I would not seek out death, but would wait my turn. As much as I wanted it, as much as I hated the life I was living, I wouldn't end it.

As soon as the words were spoken, the world was the world again. Birds flew and twittered, traffic hummed on distant roads. I could move again.

There was no sign of the Lady, nothing to show that she'd ever been there, ever been anything more than a figment of my desperate imagination trying to keep me from what I wanted, a creation of my survival instinct.

It was entirely possible that I had given my word to a tree, to the air, to a fat bee lazily bumbling by with no idea of the import of the moment.

Now what?
~~~~~
Part five HERE.